The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Hibiscus plant, botanically known as Hibiscus syriacus, commercially known as Rose-of-Sharon or Althea, and hereinafter referred to by the cultivar name ‘ILVO347’.
The new Hibiscus plant is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the Inventor in Melle, Belgium. The objective of the breeding program was to develop new sterile Hibiscus plants with uniform plant habit and unique flower coloration.
The new Hibiscus plant originated from a cross-pollination in 2000 of an unnamed proprietary selection of Hibiscus syriacus, not patented, as the female, or seed, parent with Hibiscus syriacus ‘Red Heart’, not patented, as the male, or pollen, parent. The new Hibiscus plant was discovered and selected by the Inventor in 2003 as a flowering plant within the progeny of the stated cross-pollination in a controlled environment in Melle, Belgium.
Asexual reproduction of the new Hibiscus plant by softwood cuttings in a controlled greenhouse environment in Melle, Belgium since 2003 has shown that the unique features of this new Hibiscus plant are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations of asexual reproduction.